ISBN-13: 978-1537033419

Proceedings of ICDER-2016

THERMAL ENERGY AUDIT OF KILN SYSTEM IN A CEMENT PLANT

S.B.NITHYANANTH1, Senior Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering,
S.R SANJEEV KUMAR2, PG Research Scholar, Energy Engineering.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore,
Tamilnadu, India.
ABSTRACT
A successful energy management programme requires energy auditing as one of the
important procedure. Energy audit of kiln system in a cement plant, which uses the data measured
from cement plant is the main theme of this research paper. The possible approaches of heat
recovery from some major heat loss sources are discussed by making a detailed analysis of kiln,
raw mill, and coal mill and grate cooler. To improve the production process, increase the
productivity, decrease energy consumption of the plant certain technological opportunities are
also identified.
KEYWORDS: Coal Mill, Raw Mill, Rotary Kiln, grate cooler, Energy audit, Waste heat recovery
INTRODUCTION
The main discussion of todays world is the conservation balance and management of
energy and emerging topic. In order to reveal the detailed information needed for determining the
possible opportunities for energy conservation energy auditing is used because it provides an
accurate account of energy consumption and energy usage analysis of different components.
Developing countries like India are having extreme significance for energy balance in industries.
Cement industry is considered as an important energy intensive industry. Cement manufacturing
uses dry process which includes the use of a rotary kiln, that consume large amount of energy to
burn coal and the working of the blower which is used to suck the heated air to the other end of
the rotary kiln. Theoretically it requires a minimum of 1.6 GJ heat (Liu et al., 1995) for producing
one ton of clinker. In India the thermal energy consumption in cement industries varies from 2.95
GJ to 4 GJ/ton of clinker. Harder raw material and poor quality of fuel is one of the reason for the
higher specific energy consumption
The energy saving methods and potentials for German Cement Industry is described and
the energy consumption values are given in scheuretal. (1992). Electrical and thermal energy
saving methods are the main themes of the research. Energy flow diagram represents the results
drawn .The research on energy balance in a cement industry is conducted in shaleen et al. (2002).
The data used by them is from the existing plant in India with a production capacity 1MT per
annum. It is found by the author that about 35% of the input energy was lost with the waste heat
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ISBN-13: 978-1537033419

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streams. In order to recover heat from the steams using a waste heat recovery steam generator a
steam cycle was used and it was estimated that about 4.4 MW of electricity could be generated.
Camdali et al. (2004) carried out energy and energy analysis for a dry system rotary burner
with pre-calcinations in a cement plant of an important cement producer in Turkey using actual
operational data. It was founded that energy and energy efficiency values for rotary burner were
85% and 64% respectively. An energy audit analysis of a dry type rotary kiln system with a
capacity of 600 ton clinker working per day was performed by Engin and Ari (2005) in a cement
plant in Turkey. They found that about 40% of the total input energy was being lost through hot
flue gas (19.15%), cooler stack (5.61%) and kiln shell (15.11%) convection plus radiation. A
waste heat recovery steam generation system was proposed which recovered 1 MW energy for
the heat loss through hot flue gas and cooler exhaust
Rasul et al. (2005) conducted a research base data from Indonesian Portland cement plant.
They presented a simple model to evaluate the thermal performance of the cement industry.
Mass, energy as well as energy balance is used as the main aspects for building the
developed model. The results obtained were:
burning efficiency was 52.7%,
cooler efficiency was 45%,
Heat recovery efficiency was 51.2%.
Due to convection and radiation there was a high heat loss at the cooler of 19%
Heat recovery from rotary kiln for a cement plant in Turkey was examined by sogut at
el.(2009). It was determined that 5% of the waste heat could be utilized with the heat recovery
exchanger. Domestic-coal and natural gas consumption can be decreased by (51.55% and 62.62%
respectively] through installing this system.
Energy audit of kiln system in a cement plant is conducted by; using data measured from
a typical cement plant in Coimbatore, India and this is the main theme of the paper. The possible
approaches of heat recovery from some major heat loss sources are discussed by making a detailed
analysis of kiln, grate cooler, raw mill and coal mill.
PROCESS DESCRIPTION
MINES
At about a distance of 6.5kms from plant the plant is having its own mining facility. For
convenient transportation the mined limestone is crushed into small sizes with the help of primary
and secondary crusher in the mines itself. Through aerial ropeways the crushed limestone is
transported to plant and using tertiary crusher it is further crushed into small particles.
RAW MILL
The plant has one raw mill capacity of120TPH. Raw milling involves mixing the extracted
raw materials to obtain the correct chemical configuration, and grinding them to achieve the
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ISBN-13: 978-1537033419

Proceedings of ICDER-2016

proper particle-size to ensure optimal fuel efficiency in the kiln and strength in the final concrete
product.
Lime Stone, sweetner and latrite are the main raw materials and they are grounded
proportionately in the mill. Blending & Storage silos are used to store the mill output product as
raw meal. To remove the moisture content from meal hot gas from PH section is used. Material
moisture is 4% in Inlet whereas after mill the moisture content in raw meal is 0%.
COAL MILL
At the plant there are three coal mills of capacity varying from 3.3 TPH to 15TPH. The
coal that is to be burnt in the kiln and Precalciner section is dried and finely grounded. It is from
the storage silos that the fined coal is fed to Kiln burner and Precalciner section. While entering
the mill the moisture content in the coal is around 10% whereas it becomes 2% at the outlet.
Energy Audit of kiln system in a Cement Plant

Figure 1: process flow diagram of the cement plant

PYROPROCESS
Through four stages two strings are installed in the preheater section. In preheater the raw
meal fed from top of the string will preheated by the hot exit gas coming from kiln, and in the
precalciner combustion is taking place for calcining (a heating process in which calcium oxide is
formed) the raw meal. After this for burning (sintering process) in the kiln the calcined raw meal
is fed into the kiln, and this is the final process in pyroprocessing. The raw meal fed into the kiln
comes out as clinker at the end of this process.

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ISBN-13: 978-1537033419

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GRATE COOLER
In order to preserve the ideal quality and for maneuver by conveyors the clinker has cooled
to 70-1000C after the clinker formation. . In cooler, clinker cooling is taking place with the help
of ambient air supplied by cooler fans to recover the heat from clinker, after taking heat from
clinker one part of hot air is supplied into kiln as secondary air for complete combustion and one
part is supplied to precalciner as tertiary air and remaining will be vent through ESP and ID fan.
Six fans are used in the cooler section for clinker cooling of varying flow rates. The clinker
is conveyed and stored in yard for the next process after cooling it at a desired temperature.
CEMENT MILL
This is the final stage in the process of cement making. There are two mills installed in
the plant for cement grinding with capacity of 35 TPH and 65 TPH for Ordinary Portland Cement
(OPC).To convert cement into a fine powder it is grinded with other materials like slag, gypsum
etc (which impart special characteristics to the finished product) in the cement mill. To separate
the materials that has not been completely grinded is sent back into the mill and after it gets
separated in separator. The output of the mill is then sent to cement storage silos where it is stored
and sent to the packing units which are consisting of manual as well as electronic packers.
OBSERVATION AND ANALYSIS
RAW MILL
Average production rate of mill is varying from 115 120 TPH. As per plant data moisture
content present in raw material IN and OUT of Raw mill is 4% and 0% respectively. The total
power consumption of the raw mill system is constant throughout the logging period and it is
1150KW. Average specific energy consumption is 26.9 kWh / Tons of material. Pressure drop
between cyclones, Separator, ESP are as follows119, 200, 68mmWC.

Air ingress across duct from PH fan to Mill separator is 15%.

Air ingress across separator and cyclone is 18%.
Air ingress across cyclone and ESP outlet is 10%.
Air ingress at different locations as mentioned above is on the higher side, reducing
the air ingress would reduce power of raw mill fan and raw mill ESP fan.

COAL MILL
Three mills are used for plant installation, in which two mills (CM-1&5) are of ball mill
type and other one is vertical roller mill (CM-3). The design capacity of the mill is 3TPH, 5 TPH
and 15 TPH (with higher fineness) respectively. The typical coal mill circuit diagram with
temperature, pressure, oxygen percentage and flow of fans at various locations is given below.
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ISBN-13: 978-1537033419

Proceedings of ICDER-2016

Average production rate of CM-1 is 1.4 TPH, CM-5 is 3.05 TPH and CM-3 is 4.7 TPH.
Moisture content present in raw material IN and OUT of Coal mill is 7-12% and 2.2-3.5%
respectively as per plant data.

In CM-1 and CM-5 the power consumption of coal is almost constant and it consumes 69 kW
and 116 kW respectively. Power consumption of CM-3 (VRM) is varying between 78 90 kW.
60.1 kWh is consumed in average for per Ton of material. From PH fan to coal mill booster fan
air ingress across duct is 20%.

Air ingress across Coal mill booster fan and VRM cyclone is 26.5%.
Air ingress across VRM cyclone and bag house outlet is 6%.
Air ingress at different locations as mentioned above is on the higher side, reducing
the air ingression would reduce power of mill fans and Bag house fan.

PYROPROCESSING SECTION
There are 4 stages for Preheater and Precalciner, the preheater section consists of dual
streams (preheater and precalciner).The raw meal after gets grind in raw mill stored in storage silo
is fed into the preheater section through the first cyclone which gets heated up by the upcoming
hot gas in both streams.
Fuel (coal) is conveyed through compressed air for firing in kiln and precalciner. The
pyroprocessing section of the cement plant is shown in figure 2
Energy Audit of Kiln System in a Cement Plant

Figure 2: Pyroprocessing Section

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ISBN-13: 978-1537033419

Proceedings of ICDER-2016

PARAMETERS OBSERVED IN CYCLONES

1. The temperature of hot gas and material temperature,
2. static pressure at cyclone IN & OUT,
3. Oxygen content in flue gas at the exit
Table 1: Flue Gas Analysis of Pyroprocessing Section
Kiln Exit
Oxygen %
3.2

Precalciner Stream Exit

9.5

GCT Outlet
10

ESP Outlet
11.7

Pressure drop across cyclone 2 & 3 are found high. Possible material clogging that needs
to be cleaned was checked. The resulting reduction is observed in power consumption of Preheater
fan through the reduction of pressure drop. It was found that there is ambient air infiltration into
the Preheater and Precalciner from the flue gas analysis which is the ducting system that increases
the work load of PH fan and Kiln ESP fan. Oxygen percentage in kiln discharge is satisfactory.
At present air infiltration percentage is 15.5%, so the specific air flow in preheater section is 2.47
NM3/kg of clinker which is on the higher side compare to the standard 1.6 NM3/kg of clinker.
The air infiltration must be reduced to 8 % to reduce specific air flow to 2.31 NM3/kg of clinker.
Since only one string is in operation this is on higher side.
GRATE COOLER
Grate cooler is installed in the plant to cool the hot clinker which comes out from the kiln
after calcinations process. The design parameters of cooler is the Capacity- 1250 TPD of clinker
and Grate area 52.92 m2. The plant is running on partial load with one string operation in
preheater section during the study. The clinker coming in to the cooler is reduced by half in one
string operation, but during this time also grate speed is at its design 3.5 Strokes/min. The specific
air flow of cooler is calculated from our measurements and it is found to be 5.22 NM 3/kg of
clinker which is on higher side compared to its standard of 1.8 NM3/kg of clinker. The main
reasons for this is the Kiln is running with 50% load so clinker coming in to the cooler is less than
the rated and cooler fans are running at full speed. The bed thickness would be thin and uneven
since Grate speed is also at its rated/full load speed.
HEAT BALANCE
Following assumption are made in order to analyze the heat balance of the Rotary kiln and Grate
cooler.
Steady state working condition
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Change in ambient temperature is neglected

Cold air leakage into the systems is negligible

ROTARY KILN
One Rotary Kiln with production capacity of 1250 TPD is installed by the plant. The
present Kiln speed is 1.2 rpm. To control the flame shape the kiln is installed with one centrifugal
fan for swirl air and one root bowler for axial air and the same air is acting as primary air for
combustion.
Coal is conveyed through compressed air into the kiln. During study various operating
parameters have been observed and measured and the important data collected is given below:
1. The average coal consumption of main kiln burner is 3 TPH coal.
2. The average kiln feed is 74.5 TPH and clinker production is 52 TPH.
To reduce kiln surface heat losses in its interior surface is covered with refractoriness of
alumina bricks with 200mm thickness. The measured average surface temperature of kiln is
1810C.
During the audit the kiln drive power consumption was taken and the average power
consumption is 40 kW.
The heat balance is done based on coal firing quantity, measured air flow rates and
temperature. The following parameters are considered as the basis for the analysis:
1. Ambient air temperature is 34oC.
2. Clinker production at kiln discharge is 52 TPH.
3. Assumed clinker temperature at kiln discharge side is 1270 0C.
Proximate analysis of coal (Fixed carbon-39%, Ash-29%, Volatile matter-27.7%,
Moisture-2.44%) and ultimate analysis of coal (Carbon-54.62%, Hydrogen-3.54%,
Nitrogen-1.54%)
The Gross Calorific value of coal (GCV) can be calculated by using Dulongs formulae as
GCV = ([35.5C+114.8H+9.5S-14.5O] = 23422.212 kJ/kg.
Composition of clinker is SiO2-20.90%, Al2O3-5.25%, Fe2O3-2.93%, CaO-62.11%, MgO-5.82%.
Heat of reaction of clinker (HR) = (4.11Al2O3) + (6.48MgO) + (7.646CaO) (5.11SiO2)-(0.59Fe2O3)
= 1779.50 kJ/kg of clinker

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INPUT ENERGY
Equation

Coal combustion
in
kiln
(Q1), m*GCV
GCV= 23422.212
KJ/Kg
Coal combustion
in
precalciner m*GCV
(O2),
GCV=
23422.212 KJ/Kg

TOTAL HEAT INPUT

OUTPUT ENERGY
Heat required for
Clinker
1 formation(O3),
m*Hr
Hr=1779.50KJ/Kg
of clinker
Quantity of heat
2 used
in
Raw m*Cp(T1-T2)
mill(O4)

of Temp C

Result
Cp
(KJ/Kg
(KJ/Kg) of
clinker)

0.094

2201.68

41.14

0.1345

3150.28

58.86

5351.96

100

1779.50

33.24

1.1670

T1= 420
T2= 75.1

1.01574 408.83

7.63

Quantity of coal
used in coal mill m*Cp(T1-T2)
(Q5)

0.2891

T1=420
T2= 73.1

1.01573 101.86

1.9

Heat carried away

by raw mill ESP m*Cp(T1-T2)
fan vent (Q6)

1.9699

T1=75
T2=34

1.0241

82.70

1.54

Heat carried away

by coal mill bag m*Cp(T1-T2)
filter fan vent (Q7)

1.58

T1=73
T2=34

1.0241

63.401

1.184

Heat carried away

by clinker from m*Cp(T1-T2)
grate cooler (Q8)

T1=110
T2=34

0.7774

59.08

1.103

Heat carried away

by cooler vent air m*Cp(T1-T2)
(Q9)

5.88

T1=180
T2=34

1.01574 871.95

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Mass, m
(Kg/Kg
clinker)

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Heat losses due to

hot gas flowing
out from kiln ESP
fan vent (Q10)
9 Heat losses in
GCT
section
(Q11)
10 Heat loss due to
moisture in coal
(Q12)
11 Radiatio loss from
kiln surface (Q13)

Proceedings of ICDER-2016

12 Convection heat
loss from kiln
surface (Q14)
13 Heat losses by
surface convection
and radiation from
cooler (Q15)

m*Cp(T1-T2)

4.162

T1=139
T2=34
T1=420
T2=34

m*Cp(T1-T2)

2.55

(L+(Cps+(T1T2)*M)

Mkiln=0.0943 T1=840
Mpc=0.1049
T2=34

0.9990

436.56

8.15

1.0241

1008.02

18.83

1.881

26.25

0.49

MNA (Ts4TO4),Akiln=1272.3
4m2

Ts=181
T_=34

89.53

1.67

2.32Akiln(TsTO)1.250.86,
Akiln=1272.34m2
{[0.548(T1/55.55
)4-(T2/55..55)4+
1.957 (T1-T2)1.25]
0.86} Acooler,
Acooler=310.2m2

Ts=181
T_=34

89.82

1.68

8.51

0.16

T1=328K
T2=307K

TOTAL OUTPUT ENERGY

5026.011 94.26

UNACCOUNTED HEAT LOSS

325.98

6.9

The detailed heat balance of the kiln system

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
INSTAL WASTE HEAT RECOVERY SYST
For generating steam by boiler recovered waste heat was used. To generate power, Boiler is
coupled with steam turbine. GCT can be avoided, water sprayed into the GCT will be saved, power
consumed by GCT pump and LSQ pump is also saved through installing this. So inorder to utilize
the heat from the gas coming to Gas Conditioning Tower it is better to install a waste heat recovery
boiler. The proposed waste heat recovery system for the plant is shown in figure 3.

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This formula can be used to calculate the total heat that could potentially be recovered:
Q = VCpT
Flow rate (V) of gas inlet to gas conditioning tower in m3/hr
Density of gas() corresponding to the gas temperature in kg\m3
Specific heat (Cp ) of gas corresponding to the temperature in kcal/kgC.
Combined() of waste heat recovery boiler and turbine
Change in temperature(T) in C
Q = 2, 32,9620.55760.24 (360-185)0.18=982041/860.4/1000
=1.14MW
Investment- Rs 1500Lakhs

SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS

The main aim of this study was to determine energy situation in cement plant and to find
out the possible energy conservation measures and financial saving potentials. The energy
efficiency value for the kiln system was found to be 41.83%. The major heat losses for the system
were identified as the preheater exhaust gases (GCT) and heat carried away by cooler vent air
(grate cooler). The preheater exhaust gas carries about 232962 m3/hr, which indicate the total
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energy recovery from these waste gases of (16.48%). A waste heat recovery steam generation
system was selected showing the energy saving potential of 1.14 MW from the waste heat streams
with simple pay back of 48 months.
Thermal energy conservation study is carried out in a cement industry as the energy cost
plays a major role in production cost of the cement. The total investment required to implement
all proposals will be Rs 1534 Lakhs, which gives an overall payback period of 37 months.

REFERENCES
1. Schuer, A., Leian, A., and Ellerbock H .G. 1992. Possible Ways of Saving Energy in
Cement Production, Cement Gips, pp-175-182
2. ShaleenKhurana, Rangan Banerjee, UdayGaitonde 2002.Energy balance
cogeneration of cement plant Applied Thermal Engineering Vol.22, pp.485-494

and

3. Candali, U., Erisen, A. and Celen F. 2004. Energy and Exergy Analyses in a Rotary burner
with Pre-calcinations in Cement production, Energy conservation management pp-18-19
(2004) 3017-3031
4. TahsinEngin,Vedat Ari 2004 Energy auditing and recovery for dry type cement rotary kiln
systemsA case study, Energy conservation and management2005(551-562)
5. Rasul M G, Widianto W, Mohanthy B.(2005): Assessment of the thermal performance
and energy conservation opportunities of a cement Industry in Indonesia: Applied thermal
Engineering, Vol.25, pp2950-2965.
6. Sogut M.Z., Oktay Z, Hepbasli A. (2009): Energetic and exergetic assessment of a trass
mill process in a cement plant Energy, Conversion and Management Vol.50, pp.2316
2323.
7. Peray,K.E., Cement Manufactures Handbook, New York, NY: Chemical Publishing
Co.,Inc.1979.

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